Sam’s back like the stroke of a fingernail. Ramesh broke into a grin and stepped closer. He was huge. If he got a firm hold, it would be only a matter of seconds before either Sam lost his grip or the shaky framework collapsed, so Sam let go and moved quickly to his right, staying on the balls of his feet in a slight crouch. The vague memory of a basketball coach telling him to slide fast and stay low flashed across his mind. Ramesh would reach him in another two steps.
Sam faked left, then dodged right as Ramesh lunged toward him. By the time the big man had recovered, Sam was on safer footing, away from the precipice. If he could beat Ramesh to the other elevator, he might be able to jump aboard and throw the switch. But Ramesh blocked his path and lunged again. He was agile for his size, and got a hand on a sleeve before Sam was able to twist free. They were both panting now. The wind gusted again, the grit stinging Sam’s eyes.
Ramesh, still grinning, now straightened to full height, arms akimbo. Then he muttered, “Jambuka”—jackal— just as a clanking sound announced that the personnel elevator was in motion, retreating from the thirty-first floor. Someone must have summoned it from below, cutting off Sam’s only escape route. Ramesh now knew he had mere minutes before others would be joining them. His grin disappeared and he lowered into a crouch, a wrestler ready to spring. Looking around him, he grabbed something from the floor—a crowbar, which he raised like a bludgeon.
He faked left, and before Sam could recover, Ramesh swung the crowbar in a wild arc. Sam raised an arm to fend off the blow as the hooked steel end tore through his jumpsuit and raked the meat of his upper arm, throwing him off balance. Ramesh’s charge took them both down in a violent tackle. The big man locked his arms around Sam’s knees as the crowbar clanged to the concrete.
Sam kicked for all he was worth. A boot heel connected with Ramesh’s chin, and there was a sharp
Sam flailed his arms, clutching for anything that might slow their progress. He felt sudden emptiness beneath his shoulders, then a sickening moment of weightlessness as excited shouts called out from behind. Someone grabbed his boots just as his upper body tumbled downward. His legs were hinged at the knees, with the dangling Ramesh still clinging to his torso, a millstone.
They were upside down now, the blood rushing to his head as Ramesh grunted and cried out, as if unable to comprehend why they weren’t falling free. Sam saw his helmet tumbling toward the ground like a rock down a well, then heard its faint clatter far below. Several people now held tightly to his ankles and boots on the floor above, although his legs were still bent at the knees, which ached as if at any moment they might come loose under the load of Ramesh, who was now screaming in rage.
Sam felt a steel rod rake his chest. Someone had taken a rebar and was poking from above, trying to pry apart the entwined bodies. Ramesh and he were like a pair of doomed acrobats, suspended from the precipice. Ramesh bellowed and flailed for the rebar with his right hand, but in gripping it his left hand slipped from Sam’s waist. Whoever was holding the rebar up above must have then let go, and Ramesh fell free with a great roar. Sam watched him drop like a giant from a beanstalk, the man still crying out in anger all the way to the bottom. The sound of his impact was like that of a huge, heavy sack, punctuated by the pop of his skull.
Sam looked upward, but all the faces gathered at the rim of the shaft were gazing past him to the bottom. Thank God no one had let go in all the excitement. They hauled him back up to the concrete floor.
Other workers were rushing forward, mouths open, just like all those people in Myrtle Beach when he was eleven. Except this time they indeed had a disaster on their hands, and you could see the horror in their eyes.
Vikram was one of the men with a death grip around his ankles.
“Come,” Vikram said. “You must come away from here. Some of his friends may still be around. We must take you to the ground. The slow way, my friend. By elevator.”
He stood on quivering legs, and after a few steps he stopped and heaved up his lunch onto the pale gray floor, a hot, chunky stream that stank of bile and fear. Vikram gently guided him to the elevator. Sam couldn’t bear to look out the side until they had reached the bottom. Nor did he look off to his right, where a handful of men with large flat shovels were wordlessly collecting what remained of Ramesh.
Someone with a depleted first-aid kit hastily cleaned and bandaged the slash across his arm. The foreman glanced at the torn sleeve and reminded Sam that he would have to pay if he wanted a new uniform.
Back at the camp that night a friend of Vikram’s undid the bandage and applied a wet cotton rag with a warm poultice of salt, turmeric, and lemon juice. Vikram assured him that this was the best possible remedy. The cut was painful but superficial.
“You should not shower tonight,” Vikram added.
“To keep the bandage dry?”
Vikram shook his head.
“Ramesh’s friends. They will be waiting. To their minds you have now killed two of them. Your legend as the white jackal will only grow. You should talk to Zafar. Perhaps he can move you to another camp.”
But Zafar was not in the blockhouse. Apparently he was out for the entire evening, and the sullen Charbak, whose English wasn’t good to begin with, didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned when Sam explained his situation.
“It is for Zafar to decide,” he said quietly, turning the page of a newspaper.
Sam washed up as well as he could at the outdoor spigot, escorted by several men from his room, who had taken up his cause after seeing firsthand the madness of Ramesh. Throughout it he was aware of a huddle of large fellows eyeing him from the entrance to the showers.
“This cannot continue,” Vikram muttered.
“I need to send a message after dinner,” Sam said. “Maybe some of you could walk with me to the camera store so I can use the Internet.”
